What the !@#$%^&*!? has happened to California Chardonnay? (A rant)

[Randy Caparoso]

Your point touching upon Italian wine was well taken, foodie. Confession time: the last time I visited Tuscany (three years ago), I vividly remember tasting batteries of "Super Tuscanized" Sangiovese based wines aged in fairly new French oak, and thinking, "What a shame." I love the pure taste of Sangiovese -- the smoky, woodsy cherry aromas with brown spice nuances, and soft, pliable, yet gently acidic, lively flavors -- and it definitely seemed to me that a lot of it got lost in amongst the oak regimes. Subtlety and delicacy sacrificed for complexity and depth. Oh, well.

But even more telling is the relationship between food and wine. In a sense, classical French cooking (not to be confused with country cooking) is far more complex; cooking done in parts, and ending up with multiplicity of sauces. In this context, multi-layered French wine certainly makes a lot of sense.

The ambitions of more worldly Italians to produce wine on that level, and to go with classically configured (i.e. French and/or internationally influenced) foods, is certainly understandable. More power to them.

Traditional Italian cooking -- complex in its own way, as it represents the accumulation of centuries of thought and refinement -- is focused on more purity of the ingredients. The soft, winey taste of olive oil, the piercing oil of the rosemary twig, the pungent earthiness of porcini, the tender texture of taglierini... I think Tuscan bread epitomizes the tradition best -- saltless, virtually tasteless, its appeal is based on more of a feel than an actual substance. It is a lot, while being very little.

So it is with the more traditional style of Italian wines -- purity of fruit, a little of the terroir, high acid, low acid, heavy alcohol, almost no alcohol... in all their variations, varieties allowed to express themselves as they will naturally, with winemaking focused on the ability to minimize.

But one thing about Italians -- they are just as tolerant of change and evolution as they are of tradition. Like in those television commercials, the little signora on the cobblestoned street is powering her hand crafted business on the internet. Hence, there is much pride in the high flying innovations by Antinori as in the determined traditions of Ruffino. Outsiders who are not so dispensed towards open-mindedness are bound for continuous rude awakenings. You go to a rustic pocket like Carmignano, and you find that they have been blending Cabernet Sauvignon with their Sangiovese for nearly 100 years. It's high fashion woven from the purest fabrics, with old fashioned, painstaking artistry.

I'm digressing a bit (okay, a lot), but my point remains the same: Both tradition and innovation have their place, but when you take a close look at both you find that they are really one and the same. More often than not, the tradition you see has evolved from innovation, or is at least bolstered by the willingness to accept changes that are taken place all around it. It's the same for Italy as for any other place in the world.